Latest News from The Edge Software Consultancy Ltd.

Morphit 1.5 Released

Morphit version 1.5 is now available for download. New features include: 'Designer Mode'; an improved formula editor; a new 'Instructions Panel' and access to SQL compliant databases. These new features make Morphit 1.5 an ideal choice for delivering high productivity, elastic templates into your organisation saving time & money, streamlining working practices and reducing the errors associated with traditional spreadsheets.

Designer Mode

Show or hide all the panels used to create binders. By default this mode is turned off simplifying the interface for template users.

Formula Editor

Formula exiting is made faster and easier using 'Intellisence' guiding users through the available functions parameters as they edit.

Instructions Panel

The new instructions panel provices an 'executable protocol' helping users to run their experiments more reliably leading to robust results without the need for supporting documentation. In effect a Morphit template can encapsulate both the instructions and execution in one document. The instruction commands include data import, showing pages, triggering calculations and refreshing data.

ODBC Data Import

Access data in Morphit using SQL. Supported RDBMS:

Oracle
SQL Server
MySQL
Access
Firebird
PostgresSQL

or any OLE DB or ODBC data source. Pass parameters to queries for advanced data mining, analysis and reporting in Morphit. This positions Morphit as both a Business Intelligence tool which can be used for "what if" analysis going beyond simple reporting.

Morphit 2.0 Released

Morphit version 2.0 is now available for download. New features include: Enhanced Export and Import capabilities; improved integration with BioRails; a new faster and more scalable architecture. These new features make Morphit 2.0 an ideal choice for delivering high productivity, elastic templates into your organisation saving time & money, streamlining working practices and reducing the errors associated with traditional spreadsheets.

Enhanced Export and Import

Export Morphit tables and sheets to Excel, HTML, XML and PDF. Import Excel Workbooks into Morphit.

Improved integration with BioRails

Launch Morphit spreadsheets directly from URLs in BioRails.

Faster and more scalable

Morphit 2.0 can take advantage of multiprocessor machines, its faster and uses less memory.

Filtering of tables

Filter tables of data quickly and efficiently with the new header filter feature.

Support for Accelrys Chemistry

The new Accelrys4Morphit plugin provides the ability to run Cheshire Scripts and supports Accelrys Draw 4.0 SP1.

Download now

Master data management paper published

Master Data Management: Getting your House in Order.

Kathleen Petri Seiler, Nicole E Bodycombe, Ted Hawkins, Robert Shell, Andrew Lemon, Andrea de Souza and Paul A Clemons Comb Chem High Throughput Screen () (2011) PMID 21631416

The availability of high-throughput techniques combined with more exploratory and confirmatory studies in small-molecule science (e.g., probe- and drug-discovery) creates a significant need for structured approaches to data management. The probe- and drug-discovery scientific processes start and end with lower-throughput experiments, connected often by high-throughput cheminformatics, screening, and small-molecule profiling experiments. A rigorous and disciplined approach to data management ensures that data can be used to ask complex questions of assay results, and allows many questions to be answered computationally, without the need for significant manual effort. A structured approach to recording scientific experimental design and observations involves using a consistently maintained set of 'master data' or 'metadata'. Master data include sets of tightly controlled terminology used to describe an experiment, including both materials and methods. Master data can be used at the level of an individual laboratory or with a scope as extensive as a whole community of scientists. Consistent use of master data increases experimental power by allowing data analysis to connect all parts of the discovery life cycle, across experiments performed by different researchers and from different laboratories, thus decreasing the opportunity cost for making novel connections between results. Despite the promise of this increased experimental power, challenges remain in implementation and consistent use of master data management (MDM) techniques in the laboratory. In this paper, we discuss how specific MDM techniques can enhance the quality and utility of scientific data at a project, laboratory, and institutional level. We present a model for storage and exploitation of master data, practical applications of these techniques in the research context of small-molecule science, and specific benefits of MDM to small-molecule screening aimed at probe- and drug-discovery.

Accelrys Announces New Unified Product Suite for Biology Assay and Study Management Needs

October 11, 2011

Strategic collaboration with The Edge offers end-to-end biology data management and analysis solutions

ATHENS, Greece--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Accelrys, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACCL), a leading scientific enterprise R&D software and services company, today announced a strategic collaboration with The Edge Software Consultancy Ltd. to offer new assay, study management and analysis software solutions that improve R&D efficiency and productivity for biopharmaceutical organizations engaged in early-stage screening through ADME, DMPK, pharmacology and in vivo experimentation.

Under the terms of the agreement, Accelrys will market and sell software products developed in collaboration with The Edge under the following names:

Accelrys BioRails DM Suite for general assay and study data management;
Accelrys BioRails PTO for project tracking and optimization of experiments in BioRails;
Accelrys Morphit for capturing, analyzing and modeling biological study data.

Accelrys and The Edge will also work to integrate Morphit and BioRails components with Symyx Notebook by Accelrys to deliver flexible templates for structured data management and scientific analysis.

"The new biology data management and analysis solutions made possible by our partnership with The Edge are the next step in building a comprehensive informatics and experiment tracking solution for the biopharmaceutical industry," said Accelrys President and Chief Executive Officer Max Carnecchia . "By combining the strengths of Symyx Notebook by Accelrys for capturing, managing and reporting unstructured scientific information with The Edge software for capturing, analyzing and managing structured bioassay data, we now offer our customers a best-in-class solution for biology data management."

"With The Edge's focus on workflow optimization and improving the productivity of study scientists, we are pleased and excited to be collaborating with Accelrys to bring everything a biologist needs into a single, unified suite," said Andrew Lemon , managing director, The Edge. "Our design approach has been to minimize complexity and maximize the ease with which scientific data can be captured, which aligns very clearly with Accelrys' product development philosophy. This, in combination with Accelrys' proven track record of strong product, customer and partner support makes them the right company to engage with in a strategic collaboration."

These new biology data management solutions complement Accelrys' recently announced Cheminformatics Suite of software applications. To learn more about the new Accelrys BioRails products, register for our upcoming webinar, "Biological Data Management with the New Accelrys BioRails Products," scheduled for Dec. 8, 2011.

About Accelrys, Inc.

Accelrys (NASDAQ:ACCL), a leading scientific enterprise R&D software and services company, supports industries and organizations that rely on science as a differentiator. Accelrys' Enterprise Research & Development Architecture, built on the industry-leading Pipeline Pilot™ platform, provides a broad, flexible scientific solution optimized to integrate the diversity of science, experimental processes and information requirements across the research, development, process scale-up and early manufacturing phases of product development. Through its Enterprise R&D Architecture and market-leading electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs), Accelrys enables scientific innovators to access, organize, analyze and share data in unprecedented ways, enhancing innovation, improving productivity and compliance, reducing costs and speeding time from lab to market.

Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Accelrys has more than 1,300 customers in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, energy, chemicals, aerospace, consumer packaged goods and industrial products industries and employs approximately 150 full-time Ph.D. scientists. For more information aboutAccelrys, visit www.accelrys.com.

About The Edge Consultancy

The Edge provides professional enterprise and desktop solutions and services in support of the biological research and development. Its integrated product suite focuses of on improving productivity at the bench whilst enabling enterprise sharing and exploitation of results. Solutions can be deployed to the desktop, intranet, and or cloud, facilitating collaboration and improved efficiency in a modern R&D environment.

Headquartered in Guildford, Surrey, UK, The Edge has pharmaceutical customers from Europe and the US. For more information about The Edge visit www.edge-ka.com/.

Racepoint Group for Accelrys
Marla Kertzman , 415-694-6701
mkertzman@racepointgroup.com

Source: Accelrys, Inc.

News Provided by Acquire Media

Product review

A new release of Morphit has been made available today. New features include: 'Designer Mode'; an improved formula editor; a new 'Instructions Panel' and to be able to access data from SQL compliant databases.

The Edge product review 2010

Designer Mode

Show or hide all the panels used to constructing binders. By default this mode is turned off greatly simplifying the interface for end users.

Formula Editor

'Intellisence' makes it easier to browse and enter functions and additional context provided through tool-tips making formula editing faster and easier.

Instructions Panel

Provides an 'executable protocol' to help users run experiment more robustly without the need for supporting documentation. Events include running data import routines, showing pages and refreshing queries.

ODBS Data Import

Access data in Morphit using SQL. Database vendors supported are

Oracle
SQL Server
MySQL
Access
Firebird
PostgresSQL

or any OLE DB or ODBC data source.

Supports parametrised queries allowing Morphit to be used as a data mining as well as data analysis tool.

Office 2010 compatibility issues with MS Excel add-ins - Warning and Solution

We upgraded to MS Office 2010 recently and our add-ins/xla's stopped compiling, throwing an Object Error Invalid error. This is seen when VB controls are used in the vba projects. The error occurs because new versions of the VB6.0 runtime files have been installed. When the controls are used in Excel a corresponding EXD file is created. However, these EXD files will be referring to the old versions of the controls still.

To fix the problem delete the existing EXD files, and then the addin should work correctly. The files can be found under C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Forms

The Edge take part in the Lab Data Management conference

Ted Hawkins and Andrew Lemon participated in the 2010 Lab Data Management conference in Munich Germany.

The conference was largely focused on integration issues related to laboratory disciplines covering both research and development areas. This covered topics such as integration using a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA), Master Data Management, and other topics where The Edge solutions are innovating.

There were lively round table discussions in which The Edge contributed to exploring different approaches to solving integration issues.

The Edge exhibited the latest versions of its products and facilitated discussion with a number of its customers at the meeting.

The Edge exhibit at the Chemaxon UGM Budapest

Andrew Lemon gave a short presentation on The Edge's approach to "Integrative informatics"

Integrative informatics from ChemAxon on Vimeo.

Data Mining in Morphit

The coming release of Morphit (version 1.3) includes support for data access allowing Morphit tables to be populated directly from a variety of SQL compliant data sources including Oracle, SQLServer, Access, and MySQL. See how to facilitate compound progression decisions using Morphit in this demonstration video.

Cellebrating five years of The Edge

You say it’s your birthday…Well it’s our birthday too!

Five years ago today, we started The Edge with the belief that discovery informatics was not a solved problem and that modern solutions were required using new innovative business practices. This meant starting a new type of company that was prepared to try doing things differently.

5 years later our solutions are used by several global pharmaceutical companies and we've helped even more take a new approach to information management.

We'd like to thank all of our customers and those who have helped us along the way.

We're looking forward to what the next 5 years will bring!

Radioligand Binding In Morphit V2

A new version of the radioligand binding Morphit binder is available. This binder template has a more streamlined workflow and demonstrates the use of three Morphit addins

Structures4Morphit - Rendering compound structures from SMILES
Fitting4Morphit - non-linear regression (sigmoidal curve fit)
SDI4Morphit - import of plate reader files with import definitions

You can see this binder working in the new screen cast for Radioligand Binding and members can download the binder, example data files and import definition from the downloads section.

SDI4Morphit addin released

The new 'Scientific Data Importer' addin for Morphit is now available. SDI4Morphit provides a method of importing data from plate readers and other instruments into Morphit tables. This removes the need to transcribe or copy and paste data, simplifying the experiment workflow by removing the need to pre-process data. Download a free 30 day trial version.

Curve Fitting and Chemistry plug-ins released

The new curve fitting and chemistry plug-ins for Morphit are now available with the free 30 day trial version of Morphit. Fit your data to a range of curve models to determine IC50, EC50, Ki and other parameters. Capture chemical information and calculate basic properties within the Morphit spreadsheet.

Morphit videos available

A series of Morphit videos are available demonstrating how Morphit can address a range of problems, helping to improve productivity and streamline your work.

Review the videos and download the free 30 day trial with example templates.

Morphit Released

Today The Edge release Morphit, a new type of spreadsheet which can dramatically increase your personal productivity. Morphit addresses many of the problems associated with traditional spreadsheets. You can read more about Morphit in the white paper 'Spreadsheets - Evolved'.

Morphit - Spreadsheets Evolved

In preparation for the release of Morphit this Friday, we have posted a new white paper describing the features and benefits of the application.

Members page open

The Edge members area is open.

Morphit reviewed in scientific computing

Read more about Morphit in Felix Grant's review in Scientific computing.

BioRailsopenSUSE 0.0.3 connection

Someone has booted BioRailsopenSUSE 0.0.3

Morphit launch

When flexibility matters

The Edge launches a companion product for BioRails study manager, called Morphit, flexible enought to deal with complex studies from DMPK to In vivo safety assessments.